An everyday tale of family and political life with a dollop of Formula One and various random thoughts on the side.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Sunday Herald calls Jeremy Purvis "smart, humorous and feisty" #sp11

Yesterday’s Sunday Herald carried a profile of the Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale constituency where the brains behind the Scottish Liberal Democrat manifesto, Jeremy Purvis, faces a challenging battle to hold his seat against the SNP’s Edinburgh based candidate. The thing is, every battle Jeremy’s had to fight this seat has been challenging and he’s been written off on every occasion so far, and has so far held on.

I think that people in the Borders will be very concerned about things like the SNP plans to centralise the Police and fire service. They will also be dissatisfied with the progress on the Borders Rail link, championed by Jeremy from the start, since the SNP has been in power.

Jeremy is one of the first people I ever approved as a parliamentary candidate and I think he’s more than justified my faith in him over the past 8 years. I particularly like the policy he’s come up with on the Council Tax – to ensure that no pensioner with an income of less than £10,000 will have to pay Council Tax.

I’ve been really impressed with his tenacity, intelligence and liberalism over the years. There is a tendency at the Herald stable to dip keyboards in poison before writing about the Liberal Democrats so to see him being described as “smart, humorous and feisty” is high praise indeed.

Jeremy’s SNP opponent Christine Grahame, has a fall back plan – she will get in on the list if she fails to win the constituency. The only chance the people in his constituency have to get Jeremy Purvis into Parliament is to vote for him as he is not standing on the list.

This seat will be one of the key battlegrounds on election night. I hope that Jeremy’s tireless work over the years will be enough to see him returned to Holyrood.